


Jupiter

by Terr



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terr/pseuds/Terr
Summary: After leaving Ethan in Edenbrook's atrium and turning down her friends' offer for a night out, Chiara decides to have a long, honest talk with Ethan about what future holds for them.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	Jupiter

As much as Chiara wanted to get drunk and have fun with her friends, there was a huge part of her that was still standing in the Edenbrook’s atrium next to Ethan. And without that part, she would never be able to properly enjoy her night out.

With that, she parted her way with her friends, encouraging them to drink for her too and after a while she was alone.

Ethan was clutching the handle of his leather briefcase so hard his knuckles have gone white. He had a reputation, a face to maintain, but the storm inside him was something utterly different than the indifferent expression he has been wearing on his face.

He wanted to follow Chiara, he wanted to spend this evening with her and her only, as she was the only person that could calm the tempestuous waters the storm has been causing.

As she stepped outside, he knew he has hurt her with the uncertainty of his statement and hearing her friends’ cheering and laughing when she joined them stopped him from following her. She needed to be in the company of people who could make her laugh, she deserved to forget about her worries for a while and who was he to take that chance from her?

Who was he to take any chance from her, after all?

The sound of footsteps startled him and his shock has been multiplied as he noticed the person they belonged to.

“I thought you left with your friends,” he spoke after the initial surprise was gone.

Chiara shrugged, stopping in her tracks when she reached him, standing right in front of him. She crossed her arms and even in the darkness of the atrium, Ethan could see the fire blazing in her eyes.

“We need to talk, Ethan.”

She didn’t surprise him, not really. She was brilliant and she could see right through him – he was

more surprised that she waited so long before demanding a proper conversation.

“We do,” he nodded. “Are you sure you want to talk now? You should be having fun with your friends while you are all in Boston. We can talk tomorrow.”

“We need to talk now. Can we take a walk?”

Knowing that there was no space to refuse, he nodded again and followed her into the night. The air was chilly, however it smelled like spring and a promise of warmer months to come. Better months to come.

_How ironic._

Chiara couldn’t ignore the growing distance between them any longer. Even now, walking next to each other, they didn’t do as much as hold their hands. Ethan’s hand didn’t linger on the small of her back like it used to. There was no random kiss on the top of her head in the middle of their walk. Her arms remained crossed over her chest and Ethan’s hand – the one that wasn’t holding his briefcase – was safely hidden in the pocket of his jacket.

Their walk was silent – both of them expecting the other one to speak first. It was when they reached a park when Chiara couldn’t hold it any longer. Without preparing Ethan – or herself for that matter – for what was about to come, she just spoke before the courage could leave her.

“What is this, Ethan? Because I actually, and probably naively, believed that there was something going on between us. You kissing me at gala like that, you attending the brunch with my friends and referring yourself as my boyfriend? You asking me to spend a weekend with your dad in Providence? I am sorry but all of those things made me believe that what we have is more than just great sex and a dinner from time to time.”

Ethan was standing in the middle of the park, his mouth agape as he stared at the woman he adored so much speaking with such pained tone in her voice. He deserved her words, he knew he deserved them, but it didn’t made it hurt any less.

“Of course there _is_ more that just that between us,” he finally replied, not knowing what else to say. He needed her to understand and he wished she could do it without him having to tell her all those horrible things on his mind.

Chiara found herself repeating Alan’s words from all those weeks ago in her head, reminding her that she needed to be patient.

_‘Ethan can be difficult. I beg you to be patient with him when things get difficult. You are the only person I have ever believed could make Ethan truly and unconditionally happy.’_

“Then why are you so cold, Ethan? Why have you been so fucking distant?” she asked, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. “I have tried my best to be patient Ethan. I have tried so damn hard, because I realize that Edenbrook’s closing and all the changes in your life are just too much now, but you are not the only one whose life has been too much lately. I have given you time and space and all the empathy I could and I geniuely believed that we would make things work in the end, but after today, I stopped believing. How could you say that? After everything we’ve been through, how dare you to say that you can’t say what the future brings? I am asking you _, how fucking dare you Ramsey_?”

That was it. All the air left Ethan’s lungs at her words and he found the world spinning around him, unable to stop the feeling of losing the ground under his feet. He stumbled to the nearest bench and sat down, taking deep breaths to steady himself. He knew he owed Chiara a lot of explaining, that she deserved to know, to understand, but hell, he was scared.

He has become a person that resembled nothing of the great Ethan Ramsey.

_When she finds what a mess I am, she will leave. As she should._

“There are things I haven’t been telling you. About myself. I… I am a mess, Chiara. With my mother back and Edenbrook closing and needing to find another job and you needing to find another job… It’s too much for me. But as you said, life has been rough for all of us, not only for me and I couldn’t drag you into my issues when you are fighting your own.”

Chiara sighed and took her seat next to Ethan, taking his cold hand into hers as she whispered: “Tell me everything, please. I need your honesty more than anything, Ethan.”

Ethan closed his eyes, allowing himself the mercy of not seeing the disappointment in Chiara’s face as he spoke.

“Ever since I left my mother at the rehab center, I come to visit her there every week. And every time I am with her, there are two sides of me, two sets of feelings fighting each other. There is Ethan, even after everything that has been done, is happy to have his mother back in his life, the one that is able to laugh with her, to bring her a damn photo. And there is another Ethan, the one that still hates her for leaving him and leaving his father, the one that hates her for taking away his chance to grow up without a fear of being left alone.”

He fell silent for a while and even though he felt Chiara’s gentle squeeze on his hand, encouraging him to continue, he didn’t dare to open his eyes and look into Chiara’s ones.

“And it’s confusing, you know? I hate being confused and I often wonder if giving her a second chance was a good thing, if it wouldn’t be easier to leave her in the past and just hate her for the rest of my life. And Edenbrook’s closing… I never thought that it would affect me so much. It’s not really about the hospital, damn it’s not even about moving away from Boston, it’s about you, Chiara. I’ve got some offers and some of them are really tempting, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept any of them, because I can’t leave Boston if you stay here. And I can’t ask you to go with me to New York or Los Angeles, if you wish to stay here. You are going to be the best doctor, the best diagnostician of your generation Chiara and nobody can doubt that. So who am I to take your chances away from you? Finishing your residency in a hospital of your choice, in a hospital that could provide the best learning environment for you is the most important thing for you and I would never forgive myself if you wasted your potential because I selfishly dragged you to the hospital I chose. And if you found your dream hospital, I would go with you, of course I would, but why would you want me to follow you? You are capable of making a change in medicine without me and you deserve to own your success.”

He gulped visibly, the lump forming in his throat making it hard to continue. What he said was true – he couldn’t see Chiara needing him, wherever she decides to go. The fact that it was true didn’t mean it didn’t hurt him to say it out loud.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear Chiara mutter: “This is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard.”

“And of course, there’s the thing… Every time I imagine you moving away, my mind starts spiraling down the memory lane until it crashes with the memory of the attack. And that’s when things start to get ugly for me. Do you remember what I told you after the funeral? About my fear of leaving you alone?”

He opened his eyes at last to see her reaction and as she nodded quietly, he continued.

“The fear is still there, Chiara. I still feel it every day, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep and some nights, that fear wakes me up. And ever since I’ve known that we wouldn’t be able to work together anymore, it has gotten worse. Sometimes I can’t catch my breath. Sometimes, my hands start to shake. Sometimes, my vision gets blurry. I just sit on the couch in my dark living room and replay every possible scenario in my head, every possibility of what could happen if we don’t work together. Few days ago, I have gotten to this point too and I imagined that you would work in a different state and there would be another attack and I wouldn’t be there to help you, to save you. To hold your hand. That I would receive a call from your mother telling me that you were gone, that you died while I worked thousand miles away from you. The next thing I know, I’m bent over my toilet, throwing up.”

His voice cracked and Chiara could see fresh tears falling down from his still closed eyes. He was clutching on her hand now, as if it was to make sure that she was still there, that she was alive and next to him.

“I’m a mess, Chiara, you know? I am a fucking mess and you deserve to be with someone who can make you feel safe, who can take your worries away from you. You deserve to laugh and dance and joke around, you deserve to hear all those sweet things I haven’t said until now, you deserve to be with someone who doesn’t go crazy every time you don’t pick up your phone, imagining the worst scenarios. You deserve to be with someone who agrees to do every stupid dangerous thing with you, someone who is easy to be around, someone without so much issues, someone young and happy. I am old and broken and difficult. And I thought, I _hoped_ that maybe if I put some distance between us, that maybe it would be easier. That my fear would diminish, that it would be easier for you to leave and for me to be left.”

He finally opened his eyes fully, looking at the signs of disgust and disappointment he expected to see on Chiara’s face.

Instead, he found her staring at him with expression so gentle, so full of affection and pain and understanding.

“First of all, you are not that old,” she chuckled, not being able to keep the remark to herself. “You are practically a millennial!”

Ethan shook his head, but there were signs of amusement on the corners of his lips and Chiara decided to take that as her personal win.

“Have you ever considered that maybe I want to be part of your mess, Ethan?” she asked quietly, all traces of joking gone. “That I don’t want to be with anyone else, no matter how difficult it gets between us? Have you _ever_ thought that maybe I have chosen you as you are, the difficult, broken Ethan?”

There was a long silence. Chiara didn’t quite expect him to answer and Ethan had no idea how to answer that.

Of course it never occurred to him. He never believed that she would want to be with him if she knew what an anxious chaos he was.

“I need you to answer my next question and I need you to be honest.”

“Of course,” he answered immediately.

“Do you care about my career or about my happiness?”

The question took Ethan by surprise. Was that some kind of trick? A test he was supposed to pass? Those two things appeared strongly correlated to Ethan.

“What are you asking, Chiara?”

“My career or my happiness, Ethan?”

“Your happiness,” he answered at last.

“Then we are stuck together. Because my happiness is with you, Ethan. I can pursue an amazing career and be terribly unhappy if you are not part of my life.”

Ethan shook his head again, his whole body tensing at those words. He hated himself for putting her into such position.

“That’s the problem Chiara, don’t you understand? You shouldn’t have to decide between me and your career. You are young, your whole life, your whole career ahead of you. I can’t be the one to cut your opportunities short because I am selfish and want to be with you.”

She laughed softly to herself, tracing his knuckles with her thumb, the gesture that usually worked the other way around for them.

“Life is not a fairytale, Ethan. I am not a princess that can have it all. Right now I have to choose and I am choosing you. And that doesn’t mean I am giving up on my career, for God’s sake. Of all the people, you are the one to know why I became a doctor. I never did it because I dreamed of being famous or rich or speak on conferences. I became a doctor to help people, to make a change in their lives and I can do that in any hospital, any. Hell, if we decide to move to Cambodia tomorrow and help people there, I am in. I don’t care about being the best diagnostician of my generation, I don’t care about awards and people praising me. I thought you knew that.”

There was a sadness in her voice as she said the last sentence. It hurt her that after two years, Ethan believed that she would want the career of a famous doctor over anything else.

“I love you,” she whispered, not looking into his eyes. “And I have loved you for a long time. I was afraid to tell you because I believed that it would scare you off and you would distance yourself, but look at us, distancing anyway. So here it is. I love you and it makes me staggeringly sad that you don’t allow yourself to believe that. That you expect me to leave.”

Taking a deep breath, she played with her options. She could just stop now, with her heart already on her sleeve. Or she could push him even more, pouring her _everything_ out.

“I can’t force you to want to be with me, obviously. So trust me, if you decide that whatever it is between us, is over, I will let you go and I will move on. Because my life wouldn’t end, because I would have to move on. But I am not your kid Ethan, I am not even your intern anymore. I am an adult, a woman capable of deciding what I want. And I want you, Ethan. With every difficulty ahead of us, _I want you_.”

Unable to contain himself any longer, Ethan wrapped Chiara’s whole frame into his arms, hugging her with a force he has never hugged her before.

They were both messy now, a tangle of arms and kisses, Ethan’s tears falling into Chiara’s hair, Chiara’s hands clutching the back of Ethan’s jacket.

They hugged and kissed and smiled shyly at one another and then kissed again, not caring about anyone seeing them, about anyone being resentful of such public declaration of their love.

“What if you hate me? When you find out you could have had a better life with someone else, somewhere else but stayed stuck with me instead? What if you hate me then?” Ethan whispered as their lips parted, the terrible feeling of dread in his gut not completely gone.

Chiara cupped his cheeks with both her hands, pulling him closer to her so that she could kiss his forehead with a gentleness only Chiara Ray could ever provide.

“I could never hate you. And you need to stop hating yourself too, Ethan. I chose you and I’ll keep choosing you for as long as you allow me to.”

New tears damped Ethan’s cheeks at her words and even though he always made sure to not to cry when anyone could see him, he didn’t give a single damn now. He was pretty sure she could see his bare soul, so what would be the point of hiding his tears?

“Can I take you home with me?” he whispered and it was when Chiara nodded that the first sincere smile formed on his lips.


End file.
